Seasons1 of 4
Local tourist literature calls this tree an oak. It is a sycamore, and by the International Oak Society's own figures it is a metre rounder than the famous Birnam Oak a few steps along the same path. The Society, which knows its oaks, recorded the girth at about 8 metres in 2016. Hidden Scotland gives the same 8 metres and puts the tree at about 300 years old. That age is a tourism estimate, not a count of rings, and the two sources may share the same local information, so read it as a rough guide. A map record gives a 7 metre figure without saying whether it means round or across. Locally it goes by the Young Pretender, which suits a tree that has spent its life standing next to a more famous one and being mistaken for it. Like its neighbour, it carries its age in its lower limbs, grown so long and heavy that they now rest on wooden props. The newest photographs we have found of it are from 2009, and the map record was last updated in 2025. We believe it still stands. If you walk the path, tell us what you find. It is free and open at any hour, on the riverside path along the south bank of the Tay at Birnam, so a visit to one tree is a visit to both.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
Riverside path on the south bank of the River Tay, Birnam, Perth and Kinross
You can recognise it by the massive trunk, about 8 metres round, and the heavy low branches resting on wooden props. It stands on the riverside path a few steps from the Birnam Oak, the broader of the two.
As the Birnam Oak: Dunkeld and Birnam railway station serves the villages; distances not measured by this pass.
In fruit
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.
